Archive for the ‘Andy Warhol’ Category

It would never cross my mind to attempt to judge other Discordians on how Discordian I believe they are, since the very nature of the beast is that Eris is different to each person. The brilliance in this, to me, is that this is a beautiful parable of not only religion and philosophy, but absolutely everything – Discordianism is just more honest about it. Not a single person out there looks at a can of Campbell’s soup and thinks the same thing. Not a single person out there looks at an Andy Warhol painting of a Campbell’s Soup can and thinks the same thing. Not a single person out there looks at the ‘singing asshole’ in Pink Flamingos and thinks of the same thing, not a single person; it’s a hell of a Rorschach test.

So, Discordianism, like anything else, is different for each person, but even more so, since permission is granted to mould the very concept to fit the parameters of your own mind. This, obviously, gives a lot of room for interpretation to the individual. To compound this, the central Discordian text, the Principia Discordia suggests that a Discordian should never believe what he or she reads, thereby causing a paradox, wherein the Principia renders all of its own contents moot. This has resulted in many people, considering themselves Discordians, giving practically no credence to any of the contents of the Principia whatsoever. Which is fine, if that wasn’t the intention then why claim so in the first place? I myself only given credence to a handful of concepts in the Principia and see the remainder as amusing filler, but I ask this . . . if you consider yourself a Discordian and think that Gregory Hill and Kerry Thornley were hippie-dippy crackpot peaceniks who wrote a load of nonsense and thought the world was simply an amusement park, then why do you even choose to name yourself after the concept they originated? If you seem to loathe all their ideals, why do you align yourself with them?

I would ask any person who falls into this category to sit down somewhere quiet and look deep within themselves as to the motives of taking on the name Discordian. Was it because you truly felt you were a Discordian, or was it because you could fuck shit up on a regular basis, screw with peoples minds, and generally act reprehensible with what you consider a license to do so?